Friday 3 March 2017

621 Now and Then


First  viewed : 25  July  1983

This  Esmonde  and  Larbey  comedy  series   on  ITV   doesn't  seem  to  have  left  much  of  a  footprint  despite  an  excellent  cast, particularly  notable  for  featuring  both  the  UK's  favourite  grannies,  Liz  Smith  and  June  Brown.

Bernard  Holley  played  middle  aged  Peter  Elston  , fondly  looking  back  to  his  childhood  during  World  War  Two. His  younger  self  was  played  by  John  Alford  while  Sam  Kelly  and  Marcia  Warren  played  his  parents. He  had  two  sexpot  sisters  in  Tracy  Hyde  and  Cindy  O' Callaghan. One  got  married  to a  serving  private  ; the  other  was  engaged  to  a  supercilious  nerd  Randall  ( Mark  Burdis )  who  was  dodging  the  front  in  a  supposedly  vital  civilian  role. The  young  Peter  utterly  despised  him. He  also  had  an  uncle  Gordon  ( Barry  Stanton )  who  was  involved  in  the  black  market  and  gave  his  nephew-in-law  a  box  of  condoms  as  a  going  away  present.

Despite  the  latter  incident,  the  comedy  was  mostly  of  a  fairly  gentle  nature  with  all  the  characters  bar  Randall  warm  and  sympathetic. I  watched  the  first  season  ( 7  episodes )   on Sunday  nights   with  my  mum  and  sister . My  mother  would  smile  in  recognition  at  many  of  the  privations  and  improvisations  such  as  using  Bisto  to  simulate  unobtainable  stockings   although  she  was  generally  resistant  to  nostalgia,  especially  where  World  War  Two  was  concerned,  having  been  an  evacuee  from  Manchester.

The  second  season   ( six  episodes  )  in  1984  passed  me by  entirely. I  don't  even  know  whether  it  stayed  a  wartime  drama  or  moved  on  into  the  late  forties.

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